


Dash Away The Aches Of My Heart

by CookieCatSU



Category: Wonder Woman (Movies - Jenkins)
Genre: Barbara has a degree in Cryptozoology, Barbara is an unreliable narrator, Barbara is enamored, F/F, Fluff and Angst, Reconciliation, Spoilers for WW84, awkward discussions, my girl Barbara deserved more screentime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-14
Updated: 2021-01-16
Packaged: 2021-03-16 08:26:54
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,090
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28703622
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CookieCatSU/pseuds/CookieCatSU
Summary: Reconciliation is messy.Diana Prince calls it inevitable, calls it duty, and responsibility.Dr. Barbara Minerva calls it love.
Relationships: Diana (Wonder Woman)/Barbara Minerva
Comments: 28
Kudos: 210





	1. Have You Ever Been In Love?

Barbara talks too much, fizzling, bubbling miasma foaming out of a volcano fit to pop. There's just so much extra, anxious energy, which she dispels in the only way she knows how: in a near constant stream of fumbling words. It's off putting, she knows, that desperate need to connect.

She's certain that's why people avoid her in the hallways.

Diana smiles though, as if Barbara's stumbling gangly awkwardness isn't unseemly. 

"Hi," Barbara calls out, and there's that desperation again, oozing out before she can cut it off, fizzing up into high strung laughter meant to pad against rejection. 

"Hello," Diana replies, and that's all it takes, really. _Hello._ A little laugh, brushing of fingers over flurried pages, seals the deal, irrevocable in that perfectly frustrating, perfectly too satisfying way.

Because Diana absolutely had Barbara at _Hello_. 

* * *

No one has ever looked at Barbara like she is the sun, the moon, the stars. Not Dr. Barbara Ann Minerva- gemologist, geologist- nothing special, nothing to notice.

No one has ever made Barbara feel quite so seen.

"You mentioned a degree in Cryptozoology. Surely there's a story behind that?" Diana inquires, and Barbara gapes because no one has ever cared enough to ask before. Diana's eyes are like stage lights, bathing her in soft blue luminescence so pleasantly warm she can't help but preen, facing forward, tilting further into her orbit, trying to soak it all in. 

It is soft and warm and addicting- Diana's undivided attention. Barbara craves it, with a clawing, hungry greed, even when she must turn away, every so often, for the intensity of it.

Because goodness, is it _intense._

Barbara ducks her head. "Absolutely. It's an odd topic of study, I know. I just uh, wasn't really sure how to choose what to major in... and I love a good mystery, so I thought, why not Cryptozoology, that might be fun to try!" She tucks a swath of messy blonde hairs behind her ear, laughs softly. It does nothing to neutralize the anxiety swirling in her gut. "I do kind of regret it now, because it's just– another oddity. I mean, you say _one time_ that you want to study Bigfoot and people look at you like you're crazy"

(But how could she not be anxious, seated across from such a gorgeous woman?).

And she is. Heavenly, a marble carved masterpiece fashioned by the gods. And those _cheekbones._

"Bigfoot?" Diana blinks at her, for all the world looking lost.

She blinks right back. "Um, yeah?" Barbara makes a noise of confirmation, wiggling nervously in her seat, "I did my thesis paper on uh, migration patterns, based on reported Bigfoot sightings throughout the forests of North America"

Turns to pick at the napkin folded up by her plate, because surely Diana must think she's an idiot. What else could that blank look possibly mean, besides lack of interest? 

She laughs quiet and choppy, white noise to drown out the fear of embarrassment welling up. 

"I'm sorry, sorry, uh, I'm rambling"

A hand lands on hers. When she glances back up Diana is gazing at her so fondly, as if she is the heralder of dawn, champion of… something, and Barbara is uncertain how to process that. She openly gapes. 

"No, that's okay. I like listening" Diana leans in, before bringing the edge of her glass to her lips. 

Barbara's eyes follow the movement. She swallows thickly.

"Are you sure, I, I kinda just start vomiting words, especially when I'm nervous–"

"Specifically, I like listening to _you._ So please, tell me more"

Diana smiles, so intent.

And Barbara feels _seen._

Maybe, even _loved_. Though that might be jumping the gun, but really, what is a gal supposed to think, seated with a balcony view of Washington lit in dazzling color just beyond the glass, and a beautiful woman seated to her right, laughing at something she said, gazing fondly at Barbara as if she herself had single-handedly hung the stars up in Diana's sky? 

Holding wine glasses, and nearly brushing hands.

Sitting like this, so warm and satisfied, what other word is she meant to use, other than love.

* * *

Barbara awakens with a headache. There are shattered shards of gold scattered across the rocks, sharp enough to cut, glittering, stupid, sparkling stardust.

It's beautiful, in that heartwrenchingly painful way, so bittersweet Barbara is quickly sickened with the sight.

It makes her think of Diana. 

* * *

_Have you ever been in love?_

_Her fingers curl around her jaw, gaze wistful. Barbara now knows that spark of loss was born centuries past. "Once. A long, long time ago. You?"_

_"So many times, yeah. All the time. Often"_

It takes three days for Barbara to walk from the mountain back to civilization. 

Three more for her to find a suitable mode of transportation from Roanoke back to Washington, D.C., with no cash and not a claim to her name.

The truck ride is bumpy, ragged, and the cab smells of diesel fuel and gasoline, the leather bench seat sticky with slushies from all nighters and who knows what else- but the scruffy bearded truck driver is kind- and Barbara is reminded that the world isn't totally devoid of kind acts, good samaritans. Good people.

Her luck might have soured, but the world wasn't without it's rare, blooming cornels of redemption.

The man smiles, not in the same way people had smiled at her after the Dreamstone, but it's less forced, more genuine, framed by a greasy, wiry mustache and deep cut laugh lines.

"I'm sure you're in a rush to get home" He'd said, upon hearing her predicament, "Got people waiting for ya, right?"

Barbara had nodded, and though she knows she shouldn't, she immediately thinks of Diana.

Of dinner. (First dates). Fluttering butterflies in her throat, and strong hands helping her up.

Even in her anger, with her forehead pressed to smudged glass and her fur coat pulled around her knees for warmth, she wonders what she's doing. If she's thinking about her. 

If she misses her.

* * *

When Barbara walks back into work 6 days tardy, no one bats an eyelash. No one notices she's exchanged her form fitting dresses for a loose fit cardigan, or that she's wearing her circular rimmed glasses once again perched at the edge of her nose.

No one notices Barbara at all.

Well, someone does.

"I like your shoes" Diana says with a tilt of her head, and her eyes are apologetic, but still creased like she's laughing. 

For the first time in a long time, she's laughing with her.

"Thanks. They're uh, they're cheetah print" Barbara can't help the stutter in her voice, even after everything that's happened.

When Diana smiles, she also still can't help the fluttering of her heart against her ribs.

It's not much of a reunion, but… it's a start.

* * *

She's done it before. It never gets any better. Never gets easier, collecting up the broken pieces of her once more shattered heart.

Thankfully, Barbara is intimately familiar with the process, and knows the way to avoid getting cut, to avoid deep lashed lacerations never to be healed, knows, how best to mend her gaping wounds.

Conflict is to be avoided at all costs.

She's been avoiding Diana.

Barbara just needs time to lick her wounds, to recuperate. So she's rightfully cagey, when Diana all but accosts her in the breakroom.

"Coffee?" Barbara scowls at the pot haphazardly thrust in her direction, tilted at an odd angle and nearly spilling its contents all over the floor. 

Diana appears uncharacteristically unsteady. As if the sight of Barbara this fine Tuesday morning sets her off kilter.

Kinda like she doesn't expect to see Barbara, at their shared place of work, in a public, common space. Almost like she expected Barbara to just vanish, after the dreamstone debacle- which would be laughable, _hilarious,_ except Barbara wonders if, maybe, she should have?

She should have at least taken a vacation, or something. Who almost dies of electrocution and still thinks, _yeah, now's a great day to go back to work._

Barbara Ann did, but…. Well, she'll admit she's never been very good at the _self_ or the _care_ part of self-care.

"No" She manages to get past the knot in her throat. "No caffeine for me. It's um" she cuts off the self-deprecating joke: About punchdrunk alter egos and the dangers of caffeination, before it can get out. Shrugs lamely, vaguely gesturing with a hand, "well, you know"

They both do. Diana still has the claw marks to prove it, though she's done a great job hiding them. Cashmere scarf? How tasteful.

Diana grimaces on cue. "Can we talk?"

"Isn't that what we're doing now? Talking? I'm great at talking, and talking and talking" okay, Barbara's getting agitated now. She stuffs her fisted hands in the pockets of her baggy joggers.

"Barbara" She scolds firmly, and Barbara is reminded of scraped metal and a pressure on her neck. Barbara glances upwards and away, and she can't stop thinking about electricity, coursing, jolting through her core. Her hands shake. "I want to apologize" Diana adds, softer, contrite. "I wasn't there for you. I don't think I was a very good friend"

Barbara smiles faintly. She imagines it's more bitter than she'd like. "We tried to kill each other so… I think we're both guilty of being 'not great friends'" She snorts.

It helps with the heartache. Friends. That's all.

_"He's an old friend of mine" Loving gazes interlock._

_Barbara couldn't stop the jealousy,_ _acidic_ _on her tongue, if she tried._

 _"Oh hi, old friend! I'm Barbara, Diana's_ **_new_ ** _friend"_

Diana laughs, and she glows like the goddess she still hasn't admitted to being. "I'm out of practice"

* * *

"Is it okay if I walk with you?"

Barbara considers, but can't imagine saying no. 

Not when she's smiling at her like that.

Not when she's standing just at the edge of her doorstep, dressed in that navy blue pantsuit she'd worn when they first met (the one that dipped and hugged in all the right places), and Barbara is again struck by just how enamored she is of this woman.

Barbara nods. "Yeah. Yeah, of course"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I watched Wonder Woman 1984 three days ago, and I got to say... it was awesome! I love Barbara. Not gonna lie though, basically the whole movie I was asking myself, "who's this Max Lord dude and why is he here?".
> 
> Just get rid of him and give me more Barbara and Diana, please.


	2. I'm Scared To Fall

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Well, I'm scared of falling, Diana" Barbara says, with a bright, nervous laugh, tinkling like bells.
> 
> "I promise to catch you"

Tables have turned.

This time, it's Diana, who awkwardly asks Barbara to lunch.

The blonde has the feeling it's under not completely unfalsified pretenses, because, for all of Diana's graceful poise, she's the personification of truth, and she's uncannily honest- so Barbara can see the tension in the squaring of her shoulders, as she waits for her reply.

"Oh, um, yeah. Just let me wrap up this report real quick and I will be right there".

Diana smiles warmly, clearly relieved.

* * *

Carol tells Barbara there are still artifacts to be organized and labeled, from the shipment that had been largely overshadowed by the Dreamstone- the citrine at first determined to be worth little more than the baubles lined on the shelves of Dr. Minerva's bathroom. Barbara is ultimately unsurprised, because of course the artifacts still need to be identified, unless they were going to just label and tag themselves.

She'd be out of a job, then.

Barbara still blinks in astonishment though, behind big round lenses, because apparently Carol still wanted Barbara to do it. Expected _her_ to do it.

"Can't Larry-?"

"He's out of town, sweetheart, so no"

Barbara shifts in discomfort, yanking roughly at the collar of her snow white turtleneck. She feels somewhat smothered, because Carol is staring at her. 

Gosh. "Well I'd _love_ to– It's not that I don't _want_ to do it– I just… I feel like maybe I'm not the best choice, in light of-"

"What?" Her boss shakes her head, but there's something akin to pity in the way she casts her eyes away, as if she'll save Barbara from some imagined shame by doing so. 

The woman bristles, stiffening, hunkering over her desk. 

"I know you were close to what happened" She, at least, is kind enough not to mention the incident by name, "And I'm sorry to ask this of you, but you're the only _choice_ we've got, Dr. Minerva"

"Right" She smiles thinly, crackling and brittle. "I'll get it done. Donzo. Doneroni. I..." Barbara stops, once she notices the way Carol is eyeing her. Right, "I'll make sure it happens"

* * *

She puts down the chunk of Amethyst cradled in her fingers, quickly jotting down a note in her pad about quality- intermittent luster, excellent clarity, absolutely 100% authentic in all it's mid-level rarity.

Then she puts the pad down too, because she's tearing up, just slightly.

"Are you alright?" Diana asks.

Barbara nods, and it isn't totally a lie.

* * *

Diana finds Barbara in the corner of her office, shuffling through files as if it isn't nearly 7 in the evening. Arranging, rearranging, pulling out specific pages with nails lacquered pink.

"Ready to go to dinner?" Diana asks, keeping in fashion with their habit for the last few days.

Barbara shakes her head, frizzy blonde curls flying all about. The movement is harried, and the noise in the back of her throat is one of disappointment, but still sounds almost relieved.

"I can't. I'm going to visit my mother" Barbara pauses, and when she turns to face Diana, the once invisible weight heavy against her slack shoulders suddenly becomes immensely clear, "It's been ages since I saw her last, and… honestly, I just need a break. I need to get away and, I don't know, sleep in a really uncomfortable hotel bed and drink crappy cocktails"

She cracks a smile at Diana, small and hesitant. But genuine. Barbara is always so genuine.

Diana laughs quietly.

"Where does your mother live?"

"Britain. Well, she used to live in London. Then after she retired she moved back to Edinburgh, and that's technically in Scotland… so, the UK" Barbara stops. Laughs loud (too loud) and casual (forced). 

"My family's lived all over Europe. Anyway, I'll just jump on a plane and whiz on over. Probably stay a few weeks"

"I've always wanted to visit Edinburgh Castle"

"It's nice. Breathtaking. History immortalized. Wait until you hear about the battles!"

"When do we start packing?"

"What?" Barbara blinks rapid and confused at Diana. With her giant, rounded spectacles perched on her nose, it almost looks funny. Owlish. 

Heavy lashes, hazel eyed.

The light dangling above them shines at just the right angle to make the glass shine iridescent, and the gold plated rims gleam, and Barbara just looks soft, and warm. And beautiful.

Diana realizes that she's always looked so beautiful. More so, now that the spiky barbs and obscuring mascara has been shed.

Diana vaguely wonders how she can't see it.

"I want to come with you" Diana answers, and when she takes the few steps to close the distance between them, takes Barbara's hand in hers, it's less about the words, and more about the confused furrow between her brows, the uncertain parting of her lips.

"But only if you'll have me"

Barbara looks moments from short circuiting. She draws back, slightly, slipping her hand from Diana's grasp, flushed and a tad agitated.

Unsure.

"Okay, but- How are you going to get away from work? I didn't think Diana Prince took vacation"

"I can call it an expedition; A once in a lifetime research opportunity near Wales"

* * *

There are several reasons Barbara hasn't visited her mother in more than a year, has avoided the Edinburgh family home like the plague. 

Her recent bout as the Cheetah contributes immensely, since she dreads the idea of having to explain that debacle to her mother; but the most significant reason still remains the 12 hour flight. 

It's at hour mark six that Diana starts to look concerned.

"Maybe you should take a rest" Diana suggests, just as the opening credits for the third Tomb Raider movie start to roll, and Barbara's eyes start to sink close. Her arm is bent at the oddest angle, and her head is starting to tilt. The little reading lights set in the roof of the plane's cabin are like sunbeams in her eyes, overly bright and disorienting.

Barbara waves her off, because it's a moot point. Directs her attention back to the screen set in the headrest in front of her. "I've never been able to sleep on flights before. It kinda freaks me out, being up so high" 

It's part of why she hadn't wanted the window seat, so she couldn't look out and see how close they were to death.

Diana doesn't see it. Barbara knows, because she can see white steel, clouds and wing edges, reflected in the dark of her eyes. "I've always found it freeing- flight. Why are you afraid?"

"Well, I'm scared of _falling,_ Diana" Barbara says, with a bright, nervous laugh, tinkling like bells.

"I promise to catch you"

Barbara covers her face, sinking into her seat with a squeal. "You can't just… say things like that. At least give me a warning"

But she's smiling.

By the time their flight has landed, Barbara has indeed succumbed to the call of dreamland. Her head rests against Diana's shoulder, neck bent slightly left, forehead sort of pressed into the crook of her neck but not quite. Diana gently nudges her awake, waits for her to stir before saying quietly,

"We've landed" Then, soft and amused, "I see you slept well"

Barbara blinks up at her, vision bleary, all dark blues and stark whites. She yawns softly, and even disoriented, just coming out of the throws of sleep, she feels safe.

Safe and protected.

* * *

Dr. Minerva was like the Dreamstone, overlooked and underappreciated- unlike the Dreamstone, however, she was honest, true, not just cheap thrills and back handed promises.

Barbara was a gem in the rough, and Diana had been blind not to see it before.

It strikes her on the plane, miles above the clouds, soaring through the stratosphere.

It's so much like Steve and yet nothing alike. Steve was high flying and whizzing bullets, thudding hearts and sloppy kisses. The intensity of a first, _maybe this is forever,_ love, impossibly tangled in grief.

Barbara, in contrast, was peaceful walks through the park, pouring over outdated archaeology magazines, while poking holes through the inaccuracies- and now, laughter over steaming cups of tea, watching the sun rise over the Sicilian bay, tucked into the corner of a cozy cafe.

It's nice.

Lovely. Barbara is lovely, in a way Diana had never thought she'd let herself partake in again. _I'll never love another,_ she'd said, and she meant it.

Falling in love just doesn't feel like a choice, with Barbara. 

That becomes clear after all of two days spent in Europe- fishing for excuses not to go to Edinburgh just yet, for reasons to spend more time together, just them.

"I must have been an amethyst, in a past life" Barbara observes, a laugh bubbling like steam from her tea, and she clicks pink lacquered nails against swirling petals and beading dew.

Diana chuckles alongside her. "Why do you say that?"

Emboldened, Barbara glances up at Diana and smiles wide. "Oh, you know. I'm easy to look past– sort of awkward and bumbling. Dime a dozen"

"No, you would have been a lodestone. You're magnetic"

"I'm flattered! But, I don't think so" She tucks a blonde hair behind her ear, smile humble and gracious and still so unsure, and Diana knows that it's undeniably the truth.

Diana is absolutely entranced with Barbara. With the concept, of Barbara.

* * *

"Hello, mother" Barbara greets, and it isn't at all stilted.

Her mother steps from the doorway of their summer home, all draping flowing silk and dark hair and a marble cut smile, nearly the antithesis to Barbara, and she too pretends that it isn't awkward at all, that her back isn't ramrod straight, arm too bent stiff when she moves in to embrace her.

"Barbara, dear. I missed you" She pulls back. Barbara grimaces. "You're going to stay this time, aren't you?"

"Probably just a f-few days. I do have artifacts waiting for me back in Washington"

Her mother nods with vague interest, before finally turning to notice Diana.

"I see you brought a friend" Her smile is immediately tight lipped, guarded.

"Yes. Mother this is-"

"Diana Prince" Diana moves forward, hand pressing to land on the shorter woman's shoulder. She extends her hand out to her mother, "I work with Barbara"

There's nothing to question in the slight lilt of her tone. Of course, If Barbara could see the almost protective glint in her eye, the furrow of her brow and the disapproving tilt of her mouth, that'd open a whole 'nother can of worms.

Her mother just smiles, still staring at the hand squeezing Barbara's shoulder, the way they stand, back to front.

"Why don't you invite Ms. Prince in, Barbara? It's late"

* * *

"I want to understand" Diana whispers, on the way to the hotel from the theater, and she laces her fingers through Barbara's and gently pulls her back. Barbara stumbles in her heels, and finds herself laughing as she draws to a stop beside Diana.

It's probably the wine, that has Barbara so woozy. Or maybe it's that smile, aged to perfection, just like the fine wine they'd indulged in over dinner.

"Understand what?"

"How you're feeling, and how you felt. I hurt you because you were _hurting,_ and I wasn't willing to listen"

"It was- a heat of the moment sort of thing" Barbara offers weakly, "I mean, the world was ending. I, I get it"

Her skin still feels like it's crackling, crackling with the searing heat of electric shocks. Arms wrapped around her shoulders, her waist, cradling her limp and with teeth gritted. Barbara shivers.

"You're allowed to be angry, Barbara" Diana says, in that solemn way that carries, sinking deep and resonate in her bones, and finally, Barbara notices the way her fingers are sinking into her skin, scratching through the thin fabric of her sweater. She notices how stiff she is.

"I know" 

She just needs time, is all.

* * *

Barbara has been in love a total of: well, actually, she's lost count. She imagines it's up in the double digits, at this point, ten or more, definitely.

Barbara just, falls in love, with tiny, little things. The way one man grasped her elbow gently and never pulled, never dragged her about, or the way the girl from college braided her hair and never complained of tangles. Anna hummed in acknowledgement and Barbara knew she'd been heard, and Sarah always said her name like it _meant_ something, and even though it's only a sliver, a tiny chunk of a person, Barbara always swoons. 

Barbara contents herself with bits and pieces and scraps.

Then Diana happens, and she realizes that's not enough; that she's no longer satisfied with dregs, with leftovers scavenged under the metaphorical table. She glimpses the real thing, sees it in the smiles Diana offers her pilot, just as she's always seen it in shiny laminated magazines, and now, she sees it reflected back at her.

In blue eyes, no longer cloudy with fear. Barbara sees it.

She sees it, and she _wants_ it. 

* * *

"My mother thinks we're dating" Barbara says, with a quiet snort.

"Aren't we?"

"No!" Barbara exclaims, in what is clearly a knee-jerk reaction. Instinctual. As if she's been asked this before- perhaps not in quite those words, instead twisted and cruel and not at all what Diana means. Then she pulls Diana closer to her side, cinching her elbow tighter in the crook of her arm, and asks, quiet and mystified. "Are- are we?"

"Is this what–?"

"Yes" Diana says quickly, to stop the spiral. "I assumed-" She pauses, thinks carefully over her words. "I haven't felt like this since Steve, Barbara. I haven't felt this loved or loved so deeply in over 60 years"

Diana brushes a stray curl behind Barbara's ear, slowly leans closer, and in between want and restraint, Barbara lunges forward and kisses Diana.

"I've been waiting for you to say that"

* * *

The amethyst pendant sparkles violet, hand-cut. Barbara admires the gemstone, inlaid with gold twined around it's edges.

Much the same way Diana has twined her way all through Barbara's life, sunshine beaming through every nook and dark cranny.

"I love it" She turns to Diana, who's perched on the arm of Barbara's sofa, decked in pajamas, looking so soft and comfortable and not at all out of place. "I love you"

It feels great, to say.

Diana's smile makes it sweeter.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Diana and Steve got to go on a tour of Washington, D.C. circa 1984, so why shouldn't Diana and Barbara get to explore all of Europe together?


End file.
